My View of Life on the Dock
Annie Harris Essex National Heritage opens Scaling Up conference
Artists Leslie Bartlett and Susan Quateman on the program–their exhibit at the NPS Salem visitor center through the end of November). Local attendees include Essex Shipbuilding Museum, Patti Amaral Clean City and Gloucester Cape Ann Trail Stewards.
More to come!
For those interested in conservation right where people live, Essex Heritage and Peabody Essex Museum are co-hosting a daylong conference focused on the big topic of Scaling Up. Local, national and international experts interested in conservation planning and policy will have a chance to share, learn and network. Register on line. The conference will take place on Friday October 7th from 8-5PM at the Peabody Essex Museum and will finish up at the Salem Visitor Center. Who will be there from your town?
Speakers and symposium participants include: Keynote P. Lynn Scarlett, Global Director Public Policy, Nature Conservancy; Bob McIntosh, National Park Service; Brent Mitchell, Atlantic Center for the Environment; Stephanie Toothman, National Park Service; Emily Bateson, Practicioners’ Network for Large Landscape Conservation; Ed Becker, Essex County Greenbelt; Amanda Babson, Coastal Landscape Adaptation, Northeast Region, National Park Service; Robert O’Connor, Director of Land and Forest Policy, MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; Janey Winchell, Sara Fraser Robbins Director, Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center, Peabody Essex Museum; Eric Hove, Metropolitan Area Planning council; Colin Novic, Greater Worcester Land Trust; Wayne Castonguay, Ipswich River Watershed Assoc; Kathy Abbott, President and CEO, Boston Harbor Now; Tim Abbott, Director Litchfield Hills Greenprint, Housatonic Valley; and Rebecca Stanfield McCown, Director, National Park Service Stewardship Institute.
Call to order, welcome, and/or moderating by: Annie Harris, CEO Essex National Heritage Commission; Mayor of Salem Kimberly Driscoll; Jay Finney of Peabody Essex Museum; and Jessica Brown, Executive Director for the New England Biolabs Foundation.
The snappy logo was created by George Courage of George Courage Creative www.georgecouragecreative.com. He also designed the scenic byway logo.
During the last days of summer, the sands at Long Beach shift to form a ledge that we affectionately call the ‘August shelf’. The slant is a challenge walking or running and a ramp or jumping platform if the tide is right. Children engage in all manner of parapet building and collapsing. The ocean remains warm and the waves can seem bigger. These marks –annual gifts from nature– gently nudge us to fall. This year, as a result of tropical storm Hermine, there is a bonus shelf of seaweed brought in by majestic tumultuous waves. Don’t miss a fantastic chance to inspect species common to Gloucester, Cape Ann and the East Coast. Seagulls and clothing pop against a uniform blanket of red. From a distance, the deep color of the seaweed seems the natural inspiration for the architectural details of Cape Ann Motor Inn.
Look closely as there are so many species intertwined and clumped together teeming with texture and color! Be inspired to create: the Cape Ann Museum includes volumes of pressed seaweeds and mosses. Learn more: Isabel Natti did the algae plant drawings for The Sea is All About Us, a pioneer book on local marine life and shores by Sara Fraser Robbins and Clarice Yentsch. Visit Maritime Gloucester to learn about life at the shore. Garden: a friend collects some seaweed for her beds. Eat: I haven’t tried making my own seaweed salad but I have eyed Irish moss pudding recipes. Pudding anyone?
Irish Moss pudding: 1 cup (dead, rinsed, cleaned, possibly soaked) moss with a quart of milk in a double boiler for 15 – 30 minutes, strain out the moss. Add sugar to taste, and optional flavoring (citrus, coffee, vanilla, green tea, whatever you like). Pour into mold and refrigerate or blend a health drink. The consistency is thicker relative to time.
Good Morning Gloucester 